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coralinejones's Reviews (556)
I wanted to like this a lot more. I tried to keep an open mind while reading The Black Queen, but by the end I realized I didn't care as much as I originally had. This book is well written, I liked all the black protagonists, I love murder-mysteries so that aspect wasn't the issue either. But, still, this fell flat for me.
I thought this would be a black, Carrie-esq type of novel. What I got instead was more like "The Hate You Give" except set during homecoming. This is a duel POV murder-mystery where we read more through the lens of an annoying, white protagonist who shouldn't have been as forgiven as she was. Seriously, she was terrible. Her "redemption" did not feel believable and I wish she got punched more than once while reading. Sorry.
I felt... bamboozled, for a lack of a better term. The cover has a black girl on it, the first main character we met was a gay black girl, and even though I knew Nova was going to die (kinda what the whole point of the hook is about) I was not expecting to read this little annoying white girl run around the hood being a pest towards the grieving black families trying to clear her name. Whole thing put a sour taste in my mouth.
Also, and this was just my own fault, I wasn't really in the mood to read a race piece. I'm in a horror / Halloween type of mood and this just wasn't it at all.
Still worth reading / recommending. I would love to read more from this author. I think they do a great job at making characters and developing the world they live in. Just wish this hit a bit more for me.
I thought this would be a black, Carrie-esq type of novel. What I got instead was more like "The Hate You Give" except set during homecoming. This is a duel POV murder-mystery where we read more through the lens of an annoying, white protagonist who shouldn't have been as forgiven as she was. Seriously, she was terrible. Her "redemption" did not feel believable and I wish she got punched more than once while reading. Sorry.
I felt... bamboozled, for a lack of a better term. The cover has a black girl on it, the first main character we met was a gay black girl, and even though I knew Nova was going to die (kinda what the whole point of the hook is about) I was not expecting to read this little annoying white girl run around the hood being a pest towards the grieving black families trying to clear her name. Whole thing put a sour taste in my mouth.
Also, and this was just my own fault, I wasn't really in the mood to read a race piece. I'm in a horror / Halloween type of mood and this just wasn't it at all.
Still worth reading / recommending. I would love to read more from this author. I think they do a great job at making characters and developing the world they live in. Just wish this hit a bit more for me.
i might've finished this in a day but i can't, with confidence, say i loved this. i mean, it was a page turner, and there were elements of the story i liked a lot, but the ending kind of fell apart for me and i didn't enjoy how long it took for the two plots to merge.
i found myself caring about the family drama more than whatever was going on in hell.
not to mention i pretty much guessed the ending to finishing the book felt kind of pointless. and i hated lily so reading about her just annoyed me.
i found myself caring about the family drama more than whatever was going on in hell.
not to mention i pretty much guessed the ending to finishing the book felt kind of pointless. and i hated lily so reading about her just annoyed me.
Barbie and Ruth: The Story of the World's Most Famous Doll and the Woman Who Created Her
DID NOT FINISH: 49%
the writing in this is sooooo poor
Loved. Dense, intense, intelligent. The various POVs I could've done without, though I completely understand why they were included. I hope this author drops another novel soon
can't help but wish it was 100 pages more. hell, 300 pages more. i love gillian flynn
i may have to come back to this. beautiful prose but i'm not in the mood to continue.
Look... I did not think I would give this book anything higher than maybe 2 stars. The beginning was extremely young adult and a bit rough; usually everything I hate about certain books was in the first few chapters. At first, I didn't think this was well written. It's no piece of academic text, but I could look over that considering this felt like a corny teen horror movie from the jump. I didn't pick this book up expecting Frankenstein levels of horror. Something about that was really... Inviting. The same feeling I get when watching a show like "Buffy" or a film like "I Know What You Did Last Summer."
When the horror actually kicked in, and I started to care a little bit more about these teenagers, I couldn't put the book down. You can tell the author had so much fun, and a lot of inspiration, with all of the action scenes. Much of this novel reminded me of Friday the 13th and Fear Street: 1978 (The latter being one of my favorite movies of all time). I believe the beginning was so rough because the author just needed a foundation to get the real good, juicy, horror parts going. I don't blame her.
I will say that the epilogue was kinda meh to me. Some of the plot twists felt a little goofier than expected. I liked the last chapter and how the story concluded there more than what was said in the epilogue. It kind of felt like an unnecessary afterthought.
But, honestly, as a huge horror fan (and as someone who has seen all the classic horror movies, and loves all the campy, farfetched, plot lines and movie magic), this wasn't so bad for me? Like I couldn't be mad at some of the ridiculousness because it felt so on par with horror tropes and cliches.
Certainly not perfect, but crazy entertaining. Worth reading for around the spooky holidays. Absolutely worth a movie adaptation. I would be seated for it.
When the horror actually kicked in, and I started to care a little bit more about these teenagers, I couldn't put the book down. You can tell the author had so much fun, and a lot of inspiration, with all of the action scenes. Much of this novel reminded me of Friday the 13th and Fear Street: 1978 (The latter being one of my favorite movies of all time). I believe the beginning was so rough because the author just needed a foundation to get the real good, juicy, horror parts going. I don't blame her.
I will say that the epilogue was kinda meh to me. Some of the plot twists felt a little goofier than expected. I liked the last chapter and how the story concluded there more than what was said in the epilogue. It kind of felt like an unnecessary afterthought.
But, honestly, as a huge horror fan (and as someone who has seen all the classic horror movies, and loves all the campy, farfetched, plot lines and movie magic), this wasn't so bad for me? Like I couldn't be mad at some of the ridiculousness because it felt so on par with horror tropes and cliches.
Certainly not perfect, but crazy entertaining. Worth reading for around the spooky holidays. Absolutely worth a movie adaptation. I would be seated for it.
main character is annoying. even though i wanted to figure out what was going on i couldn't bring myself to care. i read reviews during this (to see if it was wroth continuing) and someone mentioned that there's giant plot holes at the end of the book so... i just don't care to finish this anymore
oh my god this book fucking sucks. these characters are trite and obnoxious. the writing style is that of a 5th grader really obsessed with glee and riverdale. this is so bad.